Acoustic
blues singers and guitarists from the Southern agricultural community had
started recording from 1923.
Among the
foremost singers of the farming villages in this period, Blind Lemon Jefferson
made his first recording in 1926.
He was born
in 1897 in a farming village near Wortham, Texas, about eighty miles south of
Dallas.
As is
evident from his nickname, he was a blind musician.
Blind
musicians served an important role in the history of the blues, because they
could not make a living as farmers.
Many of
them depended on playing music, and that made them foremost singers.
Jefferson,
later known as the “Down Home Bluesman”, was a singer full of great talent who
was recognized for both his creative guitar technique and songwriting
abilities.
He would
often duplicate other sounds with his guitar.
In
Jefferson’s blues, the call and response style of work songs is reflected in
his high pitched vocal and the simple phrase of the guitar answering it.
This style
was adopted by many other bluesmen working in Dallas in the same period.
The lines
below is the song named “Black Snake Moan”.
The song is an example of how
Jefferson used suggestive sexual imagery:
Oh, ain’t got no mama
now
Oh, ain’t got no mama
now
She told me last night
“You don’t need no mama
no how”
Mmm, black snake
crawlin’ in my room
Mmm, black snake
crawlin’ in my room
Some pretty mama better
come
And get this black
snake soon
(snip)
The song
was recorded in 1926 and sold over 100 thousand copies.
Stimulated
by his success, acoustic country bluesmen attracted the attention of the record
companies to which classic blues singers belonged, and country blues were
recorded one after another in the late 20’s.
After that,
Jefferson recorded about 100 songs for Okeh and Paramount up to 1926.
He died on
the road to Chicago in December, 1930.
Even though
he died young and could work as a bluesman for only a short time, his influence
on the younger artist had become greater.
Leadbelly,
who had played together with him for a period of time, ‘T-Bone’ Walker, who is
known as the “Father of Modern Blues Guitar”, B.B. King, and other artists
often talked about their younger days with Jefferson.
